Two takes on iOS 4

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The iOS 4 GM was released to developer accounts yesterday, and we have a few impressions of our own to share before the firmware is officially released on June 21. Patrick’s coming from the perspective of a totally new 4.0 user, whereas I’ve been on the beta for the last few weeks and have a few longer term thoughts to share.
Patrick


* Restored straight to it from Jbed 3.1.3
* Setup as new phone, not from backup
* GameCenter not live yet? (Edit: goes live this September, though you seem to be able to create accounts)
* First thing I miss is SBSettings – so dumb and annoying that services toggles are still buried couple layers into Settings
* Like that Caps Lock is on by default – tiny thing but nice
* Ironic – one of the only easy parts about a restore is provided by Google Sync – love getting contacts and calendar back lickety split as soon as I add that
* WiFi a little slow coming up out of sleep mode
* Like the new default grey background much better than old black
* Love that iPod app added Genius playlists
* Like how easy it is to re-arrange apps within folders
* Like folders overall
* App switching works smoothly – would love to see some screen gesture invocation methods, always feel as if home button takes a beating if it needs to be used for very common tasks
* No longer asks for review on app deletion – very good call
* Limit of 12 apps per folder seems too low – something like 20-25 would be better
* Screen 1 – most used apps
* Screen 2 – next most used
* Screen 3 – folders

Thomas
Apart from beta 2 and the incompatibility with certain apps, iOS 4 feels ready for prime time, and it’s been like this for a while. It’s stable, it’s fast, and it works with a large majority of my apps. I’ve shared my thoughts on the various betas in the past, but the one thing I’d like to really hammer home this time around is what an amazing free upgrade this is. It’s still ridiculously early, but I haven’t heard about the iPhone 4 being twice as fast as the 3GS, and the release of iOS4 may quell some of the upgrade anxiety that some people may be feeling. I’m not even sure I can afford the new iPhone at this point, but I do know that the 3GS is performing just as beautifully on iOS4 as it did on iOS3 — it not just a little more so.

* As usual, the devil is in the details, and there are so many little things about this new firmware that make my year-old hardware feel like a new device.
* The rotation lock that was added to the iPad is now available on the iPhone in the multi-tasking dock, and this finally makes Safari usable when all you want to is read one last article before going to sleep (without wrestling with the damn accelerometer).
* Threaded e-mail is such a huge deal, and it works perfectly now, as far as I can tell.
* Multi-tasking is great and convenient, but I’m actually still having trouble breaking the habit of simply tapping the Home button once and using Springboard to relaunch apps. I’m also definitely in Patrick’s boat: I’d love to call up the multi-tasking dock with some sort of touch gesture, although I don’t think we’ll see this for a while…if ever.
* Folder support just makes sense, and although it can be a little confusing, I don’t really mind the layout or the app limit of 12. I’ve condensed about six pages of apps into just two with the help of folders, and it’s fantastic to be able to do this without jailbreaking.

The whole experience just feels “smarter” in a manner deserving of the term smartphone, and that’s without scratching the surface of new API’s like local notifications, any sort of 3rd party app multitasking, and the possible awesomeness that Game Center may turn out to be. That said, I will probably still want to jailbreak for at least two features: MyWi (wi-fi tethering) and Wi-fi Sync (wi-fi sync :P ). Of course, once I do that, I’ll end up re-installing SBSettings (iOS4 makes Settings faster, but still not nearly as fast as BigBoss’ amazing dashboard), so it’s good to hear that the JB scene seems alive and well on 4.0.
Got any questions about iOS 4? Just let us know in the comments.

The iOS 4 GM was released to developer accounts yesterday, and we have a few impressions of our own to share before the firmware is officially released on June 21. Patrick’s coming from the perspective of a totally new 4.0 user, whereas I’ve been on the beta for the last few weeks and have a few longer term thoughts to share.

* Restored straight to it from Jbed 3.1.3
* Setup as new phone, not from backup
* GameCenter not live yet? (Edit: goes live this September, though you seem to be able to create accounts)
* First thing I miss is SBSettings – so dumb and annoying that services toggles are still buried couple layers into Settings
* Like that Caps Lock is on by default – tiny thing but nice
* Ironic – one of the only easy parts about a restore is provided by Google Sync – love getting contacts and calendar back lickety split as soon as I add that
* WiFi a little slow coming up out of sleep mode
* Like the new default grey background much better than old black
* Love that iPod app added Genius playlists
* Like how easy it is to re-arrange apps within folders
* Like folders overall
* App switching works smoothly – would love to see some screen gesture invocation methods, always feel as if home button takes a beating if it needs to be used for very common tasks
* No longer asks for review on app deletion – very good call
* Limit of 12 apps per folder seems too low – something like 20-25 would be better
* Screen 1 – most used apps
* Screen 2 – next most used
* Screen 3 – folders

ThomasApart from beta 2 and the incompatibility with certain apps, iOS 4 feels ready for prime time, and it’s been like this for a while. It’s stable, it’s fast, and it works with a large majority of my apps. I’ve shared my thoughts on the various betas in the past, but the one thing I’d like to really hammer home this time around is what an amazing free upgrade this is. It’s still ridiculously early, but I haven’t heard about the iPhone 4 being twice as fast as the 3GS, and the release of iOS4 may quell some of the upgrade anxiety that some people may be feeling. I’m not even sure I can afford the new iPhone at this point, but I do know that the 3GS is performing just as beautifully on iOS4 as it did on iOS3 — it not just a little more so.

* As usual, the devil is in the details, and there are so many little things about this new firmware that make my year-old hardware feel like a new device.
* The rotation lock that was added to the iPad is now available on the iPhone in the multi-tasking dock, and this finally makes Safari usable when all you want to is read one last article before going to sleep (without wrestling with the damn accelerometer).
* Threaded e-mail is such a huge deal, and it works perfectly now, as far as I can tell.
* Multi-tasking is great and convenient, but I’m actually still having trouble breaking the habit of simply tapping the Home button once and using Springboard to relaunch apps. I’m also definitely in Patrick’s boat: I’d love to call up the multi-tasking dock with some sort of touch gesture, although I don’t think we’ll see this for a while…if ever.
* Folder support just makes sense, and although it can be a little confusing, I don’t really mind the layout or the app limit of 12. I’ve condensed about six pages of apps into just two with the help of folders, and it’s fantastic to be able to do this without jailbreaking.

The whole experience just feels “smarter” in a manner deserving of the term smartphone, and that’s without scratching the surface of new API’s like local notifications, any sort of 3rd party app multitasking, and the possible awesomeness that Game Center may turn out to be. That said, I will probably still want to jailbreak for at least two features: MyWi (wi-fi tethering) and Wi-fi Sync (wi-fi sync :P ). Of course, once I do that, I’ll end up re-installing SBSettings (iOS4 makes Settings faster, but still not nearly as fast as BigBoss’ amazing dashboard), so it’s good to hear that the JB scene seems alive and well on 4.0.Got any questions about iOS 4? Just let us know in the comments.